Under the Oak Tree
by Aslan's Lamb
Summary: When tragedy hits a family in Archenland, Aravis resolves to try to help. She really isn't any good at that sort of thing but... something is telling her to go. Post HHB.


Years later, Aravis still dreamed of it.

Her venture into the woods that early morning, shouting at poor Hwin to gallop faster, taking out her brother's dagger, desperate, desperate, desperate, to the point of gasping for breath. At the time, she thought she was being brave.

Looking back, she saw that she had been simply terrified and acting in her wild terror.

* * *

One morning, over breakfast, King Lune told them that there had been a suicide in Archenland.

"Terrible!" he said. "It makes me wonder if I failed as a king when one of my subjects does such a thing."

"Surely, you don't think it's your fault, father," said Cor quietly.

King Lune reflected. "No. I don't. Still..." He trailed off, troubled.

Aravis was stunned. "Did this man have family?"

King Lune nodded. "A wife, a daughter, a son. A twin brother too."

"A twin?" Corin stared, serious for once.

"I...I'd like to visit them," said Aravis suddenly. "In a day or two."

King Lune gave her a careful look. "Certainly, if you like."

* * *

"Don't you think they might want some privacy?" Cor asked her later.

Aravis already felt one of their fights coming on. "No, she said. "I want to go and help."

"How can you help?"

Aravis had no idea. Still, she stuck to her plan. "I'm going."

"Then I should go too."

"You don't understand, Cor. I...I could have been like that man. That could have been my family."

Cor shuddered. "But telling them that...it doesn't really help much, does it?"

Here, Aravis lost her temper. "I don't know if it helps! But something tells me I should go!"

She went.

The burial had already taken place by the time she got there. The family and friends sat quietly by the grave. Aravis joined the crowd and sat with them in silence for awhile.

The wife was small and pale. Sometimes, she would close her eyes, as if in pain, then open them again and smile, as if to say, _I'm all right. It really isn't so bad._

The son was a little thing, hardly ten, and seemed preoccupied with counting people.

"You're guest number twenty two," he was saying, seriously. "You're guest number twenty three."

He reminded Aravis of her own little brother back in Tashbaan.

The man's twin brother broke the silence with a loud sob. His wife rose to comfort him.

Aravis felt out of place. Cor had been right, she thought. She did not understand their pain. She should have given them some time instead of intruding like this. Why must Cor_ always_ be right?

Suddenly, the daughter, a girl of Aravis' own age, rose and walked away from the group, a little bit into the woods.

Somebody ought to go with her, Aravis thought. Nobody did.

So she followed at a distance and watched as the girl stopped by a oak, leaned against it and burst into tears.

Aravis tried to remember how Lucy and Susan comforted people (they were both so good at that.) She could think of nothing.

"I'm sorry," she said.

The girl turned to look at her through tear-filled green eyes. "Thank you. Did you know him?"

"No."

"He was wonderful." The girl swallowed. "And I am very confused."

"Confused?"

"How could someone so good do something so terrible?"

Aravis breathed out slowly. "Sometimes, we mean well but...we don't really think things through."

"But he _had_ to know it would hurt us!" A sudden fury came into the girl's eyes. "He abandoned us! And what is the point in anything he did before if he chose to destroy us like this in the end?"

"I don't think...he meant for things to end this way," said Aravis. "There are times when...well, fear takes hold so much that it is hard to fight it. I...I was there. I almost did the same."

"You didn't have children," said the girl. "My father poured his _life_ into raising my brother and me. Then once we grew to love him, he left us. I can't forgive him for that." And she hid her face in her hands.

Aravis looked at the girl and before she knew it, her own throat was closing up and tears were filling her eyes.

They sat under the oak holding each other, crying, for quite a while.

"I don't want to go back to the others," the girl said presently. "We don't help each other. We only multiply the pain by sharing it."

"Then stay here."

"I _hate_ being alone."

"I'll stay as long as you need me to."

"What is your name?"

It seemed such a funny question after all that had been said and done that Aravis laughed and so did the girl. She introduced herself.

The girl looked at her wide-eyed. "I had no idea."

"It doesn't matter," said Aravis. "I could be you and you could be me, for all that it matters."

"Sometimes, I wish I was somebody else. But in the end, I always decide I'd rather be myself."

"Even after what happened?"

The girl considered. "Even after what happened. Because...because despite what happened, my father was wonderful."

Aravis thought about herself. Had Hwin not stopped her that day, would anybody remember her as wonderful? She doubted it. It was only during her difficult trip across the desert that her character began to be gradually molded into something worth admiring...and she knew she still had quite a way to go.

"You'll tell me about him someday, won't you?" she said.

The girl nodded. "Someday."

* * *

Aravis wrote a letter to Cor that evening, with the words, "I _was_ right, after all. I can help and they _do_ want me here, so, if your father permits, I will stay for as long as I am needed."

Aravis didn't know why it had to be that way, why her own story had the happy resolution that was denied to somebody else. She only knew that she must try to do as much good as possible using the experience that she had been given.

A month later, they went back to the same spot next to the oak. Aravis spoke words of forgiveness and the girl repeated them (because it would be just too difficult alone). And she would never forget the sense of peace that enveloped them in that moment.

Only then did she feel like she could return home.


End file.
